FolkWolf.Net

My brother-in-law has, I swear, been trying to goad me for the past couple of days over twitter. Actually, I'm probably just personalizing, but it's funnier this way. Also, because of the well-known limitations of twitter, I could only post this as a response.

It pains me to say this, because I have it on good authority that Matt Asay is a smart guy, and Alfresco is a good company. But all I could think of when I read this article was "DUH!, you don't think that's already occurred to people??"

This article pissed me off because the author thinks that he's coming up with something new. He thinks that "we should emphasize the cheapness" is something revolutionary that he just thought of, rather than something that was debated 20 god-damn years ago. We (being the Open Source community) tried that already.

In response, Microsoft came out with Gartner Group bullshit ^H^HHHHHH "studies" that came up with concepts like "Total Cost of Ownership" to show that, even though Linux was 100% free, it somehow cost more to maintain than NT and IIS.

And, to an extent, they're right. In certain cases, it is cheaper to run a web server off of Windows and IIS, rather than setting up your own LAMP stack. So, honestly, his argument is actually pretty bogus.

Besides. Cost is a relative thing. IT departments don't care as much about the upfront dollar cost of a piece of software. They care about how well they know it, and how it integrates into their environment. Cost is probably third or 4th on their list of considerations. I don't care how much windows costs, if you have a big IT department, it's going to be cheaper than training all your techs to be Linux experts.

My brother-in-law has, I swear, been trying to goad me for the past couple of days over twitter. Actually, I'm probably just personalizing, but it's funnier this way. Also, because of the well-known limitations of twitter, I could only post this as a response.

This phrase from Matt Asay's latest entry is what really drew my ire

Google, in short, is what open source wants to be when it grows up

I think it's the other way around. Google is the first sign of a "grown-up" Open Source ecosphere. It's one of the big, otherwise unnoticed differentiators between Web 1.0, and web2.0. Web 1.0 was built on big SUN servers running Solaris, and Oracle. Google was thrown on a bunch of commodity hardware running Linux, with python as glue-code.

Matt Asay's got it backwards. Google is not what Open Source wants to be. Google is a sign of Open Source's maturity.

I've finally hopped on the Ubuntu bandwagon. I've been excited about Ubuntu for quite some time, and I've been meaning to try it since dapper drake, or so, but due to a lack of hardware and time, I've never actually gotten very far into it. I recently installed 2Gigs in my macbook, and all that extra ram has been burning a hole in my laptop. So I decided to try out Virtual Box and Ubuntu. It didn't work perfectly out of the box, but with a few adjustments, it now works perfectly.

this article on newsforge was filed under humour: Windows rapidly approaching desktop usability I find it 100% accurate. I guess that's why it's funny

In Timbuktu Chronicles: Open source and Developing markets. Emeka Okafur, points to a CNET article on Open Source in the developing world. It brought to mind this quote from Bruce Perens speech at the WSIS conference in Tunis.

I bring you greetings from the hundreds of thousands of Open Source Software developers around the world. We embody many of the goals of the United Nations: we are a community without borders, a global network that shares knowledge, a social movement that produces real products available equally to the rich or poor, an economic reality that has engaged the world's largest companies and talented individuals in a collaboration of equals. Our work facilitates global e-inclusion and a sustainable infrastructure for technology and innovation in developing nations. Millions of people use our software to create global markets for local business through the Internet.

We create wealth for all. Our work, by metrics for conventional software creation, is valued in the billions of dollars. For our reward we ask only that you use our software. If you find it effective, perhaps you will join us in augmenting it.

Others offer developing nations charity and a relationship as vassals, captive markets and providers of labor at a salary the developed world would not accept. Open Source offers developing nations technological empowerment, control of their own infrastructure, and an equal technological partnership with developed nations.

This brings up the question: Why the hell aren't more people talking about this? All the pieces are in place, and have been for some time now. Extremely low cost computers are there. Open Source IS easy to use, if you're not used to windows. This is not only a great opportunity for Africa and the rest of the Developing world to get into ICT on a level playing field with the Developed world, but it is also a HUGE opportunity for Linux and other Open Source projects to gain true "World Domination," not just the domination of the small percentage of the world's population that already uses computers

Jambo OpenOffice is a start, I guess.

in Mark's Sysinternals Blog: Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far This guy discovers that when he puts a CD into his windows machine, it installs DRM software that hides itself, and makes calls that could crash the machine running it. It also creates ways for other malware to hide itself, if it detects the DRM software. This is commonly called a rootkit

I think I have finally washed my blog clean of all comment spam, and managed to figure out a way of making the spammers go away. I couldn't figure out the MTCloseComments plugin, so I just figured out my own way of closing off comments after one week. Email me if you want to know what I did, also, I went through the db, and cleaned out all the old spam that I missed the first time.

The one downside of this is: Now, no-one can comment on a post after one week. If you find yourself trying to comment on closed posts a lot, email me and I can tweak the settings.